


Everywhere Is Walking Distance, If You Have the Time

by Mellacita



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Character Death Fix, Children of Earth Fix-It, Drug Use, F/M, Forced Pregnancy, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-27
Updated: 2009-07-27
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1643516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellacita/pseuds/Mellacita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot of things happen in a thousand years. Some terrible, some small, some wonderful, some enormous. Here's a look at a few of them.</p><p>Posted on Livejournal in July 2009.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everywhere Is Walking Distance, If You Have the Time

**Author's Note:**

> Some short references to disturbing imagery and content including captivity and experimentation, some pretty blatant political commentary, and some sap. Spoils Children of Earth with reckless abandon.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Two Days Later  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot release the body to you at this point.”

“Why not?” Johnny demanded. “He deserves a Christian burial. He deserves a fucking posthuman medal, he does!”

“Posthumous,” Gwen mumbled from her place behind him.

“Posthumous, whatever. Now you’re giving me the runaround, after being traumatised and beaten and my children threatened and having to run for our lives and you lot still haven’t told me what happened to my car—“

The tired official just sighed, and Gwen stepped in front.

“What he means is, it’s been a terrible week for most of us, and I know you’re doing your job. But it would really mean a lot to the family if we could be given more information about when his… body will be released. Miss Spears assured me when I was here on Friday that we’d be able to collect Mr. Jones today.”

“None of the bodies have been released, Miss—“

“Williams. Mrs. Williams.”

“Mrs. Williams. NHS and WHO have determined that the bodies may still have contagions; releasing them would be a public health risk.”

“What? That’s a load of bollocks, I was sat with those bodies for—.” Gwen broke off, unable to continue.

The official looked up sharply. “That’s impossible. Those bodies have been quarantined since the lockdown lifted.”

“But--”

“They’re still doing it! Even now, they’re still doing it. Civil servants? Try terrorists! Criminals! Not even respecting the dead!” Johnny took a step toward the official, hand raised.

“Johnny.” Gwen blocked his arm with her own. “Not now.” She turned back the official. “I was with those bodies; I saw them with my own eyes. They’re not a threat. Please, just let us take Ianto home.”

The official shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t yet. I’m sorry.” Gwen’s shoulders slumped, and the official softened. “Really, I’m sorry. Look, if you leave me your mobile number I’ll ring you top of the list when we get the all-clear, alright?”

Gwen looked at Johnny, and they both nodded.

“Fine,” Gwen said, hoarsely. “Fine.” She spun and stalked toward the door, Johnny trailing her while muttering about toffs.

“Mrs. Williams?” the official called after her. Gwen didn’t turn around, but she paused.

“Yes?”

“If you actually were near any of those bodies, you should see a doctor.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------  
Four Days Later  
\--------------------------------------------------------------

“I can’t believe even UNIT has these bloody paper sheets.” Gwen squirmed from her perch upon on the examination table, and watched as Martha Jones pored over her laboratory results on her laptop.

Martha shook her head. “I don’t see anything, Gwen. You’re perfectly healthy. Congratulations, by the way.”

Gwen smiled slightly. “Thanks.”

Crossing over the room, Martha set an arm around Gwen’s shoulders. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I…I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Yes, how dare you get married and attempt to have a normal life,” Gwen gave a watery chuckle.

“I mean it. I’m sorry.”

Gwen looked out the window, into the hallway where UNIT staff and soldiers walked purposefully toward—well, who knows what toward. She used to think she knew. 

“I know.”

The two women sat in silence for a moment. 

“He couldn’t have helped, you know.”

“Who?” 

“The Doctor. He couldn’t have helped.”

Rage bubbled inside of Gwen. “Why not? Jack left us at the mercy of bloody Daleks to help him. Left us before that, too, left us to go with him only to die over and over again in a year he can’t tell us about! Why? Why couldn’t the Doctor have helped Jack, just this once?” Gwen took a deep breath. “The human race may not always be worth saving, but Jack is.”

Martha bowed her head. “He can’t just rewrite everything to suit himself. There are some things that have to happen, Gwen. For other things to happen, one day.”

The fight drained out of her. “I know. I’m sorry.” 

Another silence, filled with the beeping of monitors, and muffled boot steps against linoleum.

“Where’s Jack?” Martha finally asked.

“Gone.”

Martha half-nodded. She didn’t look surprised. “Where?”

“Traveling. Finding corners to hide in, I imagine. Walking through deserts, screaming at trees, shivering in the cold. Running from things that can’t be taken with or left behind.”

The statement hung in the air for a moment. “Yeah,” Martha huffed a sigh. “Walking the surface of the world, hoping it will make a difference.”

She shared a look with Gwen that soon became a reluctant smile. “He won’t be shivering in the cold, though. He’s got his coat, right?”

Gwen closed her eyes to the tears that threatened to spill over.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
The Day After  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------

“They’re what?”

“The bodies, sir. Of the victims at Thames House. They’re gone, sir.”

“Gone where?”

The soldier looked grim. “They just…shot up into the sky, sir. Like fire.”

“Mr. Frobisher.”

The pair looked up as a man in an expensive suit rushed over. “The Prime Minister needs to see you, right away.”

“Fine.” 

Frobisher rushed to his meeting with the Prime Minister. The man in the expensive suit took in the empty room, bereft of bodies, and rushed to a meeting in the opposite direction.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Five Days Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

The bodies were released from the makeshift mortuary that was Thames House; caskets sealed against the deadly, non-existent contagion. Not to be opened, the NHS insisted. It was too dangerous. No open-casket funerals. No last brush of fingertips against a scraped cheekbone. 

There were dozens of people at Ianto’s funeral. Gwen didn’t recognize anyone but Rhiannon and Johnny. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Eight Months Later  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------

She always wondered about the sealed caskets. With no team, no Hub, no heart for the intrigue anymore, no righteous curiosity left, though, she didn’t pursue it.

She never came down with a mysterious flu or horrible mutating parasite in exchange for her last moments as part of a team. Her baby was born healthy, and if she and Rhys decided to be trendy and give their baby girl a boy’s name, her parents would have to cope. At least it was Welsh.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
That Day  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The two humans before Us only heard silence, or strange whistles and shrieks, in response to the firing of their weapons.

We heard something else all together.

Miles and miles beyond this little planet’s atmosphere, Our Cluster received a message from Our representative.

Are we there?

Yes. What is our need?

Jack Harkness. Show Us.

Data flowed between a noxious tank and a master information system. Had humans eyes enough, they may have seen the threads of fire pouring down. They did not.

We were not all powerful. We were not undefeatable. We too had faced the end of Our world. Many times.

Not so long ago, We had looked into our sky and saw 26 planets.

Exterminate.

Shiny, dry remnants of rewritten history had killed Us. Exterminate. Exterminate. Collected Us. Dissolved Us. Took our Supply. Tormented Us with the scent of endless Supply, so much closer than before, isn’t it? Isn’t it? So much more. Not enough left. 

We must return. We must Come Back. We must get more. 

We are not yet Dry. Look. See It against the glass. Not Dry. We must get more.

We could not stop them. Ugly beings with ugly fire. Ugly beings do not understand Our Need. We could not stop them. 

Within the threads of fire, We saw Jack Harkness stopping them. Jack Harkness, alongside the…Oncoming Storm, they called him. 

Jack Harkness stopped them. We could not stop them.

He could stop Us. He might stop Us. He mustn’t stop Us.

Not enough left. We must get More.

We must make More. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Three Months Later  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------

He found John Hart in Rio de Janiero, drinking a caipirinha on Ipanema beach.

Hart gave him a double take. “Mate, it’s 35 degrees. Ditch the coat, for goddess’ sake.”

Jack Harkness didn’t smile back. I have missed that coat.

“Have you got any readings on ships up there?” Jack gestured to the other’s wrist strap.

“What’s wrong with yours?”

Jack held out his wrists, bare of everything but a thin scrap of lilac silk fashioned into a bracelet. Hart raised an eyebrow. It was the only part of him not out of place on this beach. Vendors wandered around selling Senhor do Bonfim ribbon bracelets every other minute, promising a fulfilled wish if the buyer wore it until it fell off on its own.

“Don’t tell me, you and Eye-candy have a falling out? Booted you out with yours still on the bedside table? I told you, you should leave it on when fucking.”

Hart knew the look that crossed Jack’s face. He’d worn it the last time he saw him, too.

“Shit. Sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“I liked him.”

“You did not.”

“Okay, fine, I didn’t. All bark, no bite that one. But pretty. And he seemed to really like you, Goddesses know why.”

I love you.

Don’t.

Jack blew out a slow breath. “Yeah. Yeah, he did.”

Hart looked down at his wrist strap. “Nothing. But I did meet a couple of guys here on holiday from the Lotus Nebula the other day. They’re here for a few months. Maybe they can help you out.”

“Thanks.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Day Later  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------

Ianto Jones opened his eyes.

He really wished he hadn’t.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Day Later, Again  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

“We need to inform the families.”

“No.”

This assortment of politicians and civil servants and military had different faces, if nothing else.

“The whole world is going to find out what the 456 were using children for. There is video of that thing in the tank, that child tethered to it. Do you want to be the one to tell those… monsters made off with their loved ones’ remains? They use children to get high.Who knows what they are using them for?”

Silence.

Denise Riley finally nodded. “It’s hardly the worst thing we’ve kept a secret.”

“It’s for their own good. They’ve suffered enough.”

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Six Months Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

He stood at the top of a hill, looking alternately between the stars and the city lights below, just like he used to.

Not a roof, this time. You’re good on roofs.

“Are you ever coming back, Jack?” Gwen’s voice cracked around the question, just another question she once thought she didn’t need to ask anymore.

“What for?”

“For me.”

Just a few years ago—no, two thousand years ago—it would have been enough. These people, this planet. All the beauty you could never see. It's what I come back for.

There’s something moving in the dark. And it’s coming for you, Jack Harkness.

All because you. Let go. Of my hand.

Jack. You saved me. You showed me all the wonders of the universe, all those possibilities, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Who will save me? I will. 

Coming here gave me meaning again. You.

Dad. NO! Stephen!

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Oh, I think it was.”

He pressed his wrist-strap. Sent a signal to the Lotus Nebula holiday-makers.

He could run forever.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Two Days Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

He was in a tank, this time. 

A tank filled with 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, some water vapor, and trace amounts of other gases, judging by the fact that he was able to breathe.

He was able to breathe.

“What the fuck?”

There were others here with him. Other humans. The sounds around him suggested mostly Londoners. Smartly dressed, as he was. He liked being smartly dressed. They didn’t dress smartly on the estate. 

He hurt. Everything hurt. He felt charred, burnt, but he wasn’t. 

Everything worked. He felt his cheek. Still cut. Felt around some more. He wasn’t that smartly dressed, after all. His tie was gone.

He looked beyond the glass encasing them. All around them, shadows lurked in a haze of mist.

A gelatinous mess exploded against the outside of their prison.

Ianto closed his eyes, and wished he were dead.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Twenty-five Years Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Go on. You have to say it.”

The young woman step inside, looked around. Stepped outside. Stepped back inside, then outside again, and looked at the man grinning at her like a madman.

“Say it!”

“You have really big ears?”

“I do not! Okay. I do. I do have big ears. Morgana said they were adorable, though! Hmph. Big ears. Twelve regenerations, not a single one ginger. Just big ears, again. Big ears and apparently I’m Irish this time. Lots of planets have an Ireland. Well, no, actually, no, they don’t. I did meet a leprechaun once, though.”

She looked at him strangely. “Do you have some sort of grave mental disease?”

The man burst out laughing. “Probably. Arthur thought so. Anyway. You know, a more polite person wouldn’t point out a person’s big ears.”

“I’m not polite.”

“Obviously.”

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Annie. Annie Williams.”

“Well, Annie Williams, I have to congratulate you. Most people run screaming from giant, headless alien chickens.”

Annie just shrugged. “I don’t.”

The man with the big ears and the strange scarf looked thoughtful. “You know, it’s been a couple centuries since I had one of you.”

Annie’s eyes darted from side to side. “Had… one of…me?” She started edging away from the man and his strange wooden box. “Like, for dinner?”

“Oh, no no no.” The man laughed, and Annie couldn’t help but relax. Really, he looked about twelve years old. “I mean, as a friend. A…travelling companion, if you will.”

“Travelling?”

A gust of wind blew the man’s black curls off his face. “You see this thing? It can go anywhere. Any time. Well, give or take a few years or million kilometres. Sometimes. This one’s got a bit better, though.”

The two looked at each other for a moment. The man cocked his head toward the box.

“What do you say, Annie Williams? Give it a go?”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Five Years Later, Sort Of  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------

“You know, Doctor, for a parallel world supposedly sealed off forever, you do manage to get back here fairly often.” Jack tucked his hands in his jeans and surveyed the beach. They still felt strange, after all this time. Not as strange as the short bomber jacket he wore, though. He never served when they started wearing those.

“Can’t stay away, I guess.”

“They look good together. Always did prefer the pinstripes. I wouldn’t mind—"

“Stop it.”

The pair approached them slowly, all four regarding each other wordlessly.

The other Doctor broke the silence. “Well, this is awkward.”

Rose opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

The strange moment seemed to last an eternity, until Jack clapped his hands together. “Right. Rose, I never did get a chance to tell you how the Daleks didn’t manage to kill me. Again. Let’s go inside and have a drink. Maybe listen to some Glenn Miller. I’ll tell you a story, and these two can have a heart-to-heart-to-heart, what do you say?”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Two Years Later  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------

We must make More.

Our method is not efficient. They are not making Enough. 

Too long for each new Descendent to be made, to grow and emerge and become Ready.

Some Descendents die before they can Supply. 

Some Creators do not want to Create. They try to die. We keep them Living. But they will not Create.

We can smell the shiny, dry remnants of rewritten history. They are still out there. Others still out there. They want our Supply. They will take them. Destroy them. Kill us. Make us Dry.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Ten Years Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

She doesn’t like her name. Her name doesn’t make sense. Older people look at her in confusion. Kids her own age laugh. 

She goes by Annie, instead.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Three Years Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been about three years, by Ianto’s count. Not a day has passed in which he didn’t wish he could just die.

Was this how Jack had felt? Did feel?

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand Years Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

The woman with white hair and red eyes nearly convulsed in horror. 

Those with her bore similar expressions.

“What is this place?” Her voice was muffled by her breathing apparatus.

The delegation from the Shadow Proclamation walked through the endless rows of glassed-in compartments. Each one contained a body. Humans, by the look of things. Eyes closed, chests rising. Some were women, with protruding bellies. Others were men, hooked up to strange devices.

“They appear to be in some sort of…stasis,” one of the scientists announced, looking up from his scanner. “They’re older than they look.”

Others had row upon row of children; children with wires and glassy eyes.

“It’s a harvest.” 

One of the colorless women turned away. 

“Commander,” barked the leader. “Bring me one of the survivors.”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Twenty-five Years and Four Days Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
“Bloody hell, Doctor,” Annie breathed as she took in the planet below.

The Doctor smiled. This bit never got old.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Five Hundred Years Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

“What do you think we should we call him?” Efnan sat down next to him and laid her head on his shoulder.

Jack pressed a hand to her belly, stroked tenderly. Stephen. Owen. Ianto. Mickey. Alex. Jeffrey. Charles.

“I like the name Edward,” he said.

“Edward. Like on Earth? A bit old-fashioned, isn’t it?”

“I hear old-fashioned names are in these days.”

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Hundred Years Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ianto Jones opened his eyes. Again. So did others around him.

Oh. So it was that time again, then.

Next to him, he heard a hoarse whisper. “Why do they keep waking us up?”

Check if he still works. One day we’re going to need him. 

He wondered how many children they had got off him.

It’s just meat.

He gasped back into the darkness.

It's our harvest.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand Years Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Interrogations were never an enjoyable event.

The Shadow Proclamation forbade torture. She knew that was just. They were not primitives who fought wars over gods and currency and chemicals.

There were times, though…

She pressed the translator. “Tell us your designation.”

Silence.

“We’ve surrounded your planet. Your will face your crimes. Tell us your name.”

“They called Us Four Five Six.”

“Who are they?”

“Earth.”

“You’ve been to Earth?”

“Yes. Many times. Long ago.”

Beside her, a squat man scribbled a note, and sent an assistant out to research.

“But not recently?”

A shriek. “Earth hurts. Man cannot die. They hurt Us. They killed Us. We must make Our own.”

“Make your own what? Humans?”

“Yes. You have taken Our child. Return it.”

“No.”

“Just tell us why you did this.”

A splash and a shriek.

“If you give Our child back.” 

The lead interrogator glanced to the back of the room. “Doctor?”

The Doctor stepped forward from the corner in which he stood with Annie. He held up his sonic screwdriver and the Four Five Six quieted.

“Tell us why you did this,” the Doctor repeated.

“Feels good.”

“What feels good?” The lead interrogator motioned the Doctor back, and took over again.

“Children make chemicals. Chemicals feel good.”

The witnesses looked on in horror. One of them whispered to the other, “they use them like…drugs?”

Two others had to be ushered out.

They had to continue, though. They needed to know it all before charges could be pressed and restitution begun.

“You say children feel good. What about the adults?”

Something thudded against the glass.

“Adults make more children. Children make chemicals. Chemicals feel good. Chemicals become weak. Adults make more children.”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Twenty-five or Three Billion Years Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

“I don’t understand, Doctor. I don’t understand how things like this can happen.”

“I’m glad, Annie.” He wished he could tell her it would be the last time she saw such atrocities. 

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Five Hundred, Eighty-three Years Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Efnan was ready to die. 

All the examinations showed her time was nearly upon her. She and Jack made the arrangements, and together, they sat with Edward and his husband and their dog in the sunny library of their home as the physician administered the drug.

“I love you,” she whispered to Jack, who smiled through his tears.

“I love you, too.”

“Don’t you dare forget about me, Mr. Jack Harkness,” she breathed and closed her eyes.

Jack leaned close. “I won’t forget. I never do.”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand Years and One Day Later  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------

On the second day of interrogation, the woman with white hair and red eyes needed answers. They all needed answers.

“How long have you had these humans in your… possession?”

Silence.

“How long?”

Silence.

She looked down at her monitor. “Our research shows you were last on Earth in the year 2009. One thousand years ago. Human beings’ average lifespan was only 80, perhaps 85 years for even the most privileged. How long have you had these humans? How did you obtain them?”

“They live forever here. The children. The adults. And Him.”

“Humans do not live forever. Nothing does.”

“He does. He died, but he lived. It was then we knew.”

“Clarify. Who is ‘he’?”

A splash and thud.

The Doctor stepped forward again. “Who is ‘he’?” he growled.

“Jack Harkness.”

The Doctor pressed his lips together. Oh, Jack. Annie gasped.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Six Months and Four Days Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Alice Carter slid the thin knife through the top of the envelope. She knew when she checked her bank balance that something was off. 

Over a million pounds had been transferred into her account. 

She tossed the letter into her shredder, and pressed both palms against her mug of tea.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Nine Hundred, Ninety-nine Years Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack left the medical facility alone. There was nothing the medics could have done for Antonio, not for injuries that severe. He couldn’t bear to go back to their…his…empty home. He would, but not just yet. 

He walked for hours, until he found himself standing on a roof, looking out over the purple sand.

He hadn’t seen the Doctor in a few centuries. Maybe it was time to catch up, again.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand and Twelve Days Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

The scientists, doctors, nurses, and counselors were on standby. The Doctor and Annie looked on. No matter how much Annie begged to be able to leave this place, this horror, the Doctor refused. Not yet. They needed to be here.

The Four Five Six were utterly defeated, ratted out by their own, cannibalized by their desperate need. The human children kept them from feeling the erosion of their lands, the thinning of their air, the loss of their vaporous rivers as their sun grew larger and larger. It would consume their planet soon, not that they would be there to see it. Their entire civilization, once renowned for its amassed knowledge and wisdom in history, anthropology, sociology and biology of millions of species, was reduced to quaking, fearful, slimy mercenaries in denial about the warming of their world while their neighbours pretended not to notice.

Their libraries were still a wonder, though. They contained the needed information on how to disconnect the humans. Free them from this nightmare, a thousand years too late, maybe, but better than a thousand and one.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand and Thirteen Days Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ianto Jones opened his eyes for the 2,091st time since he died. He wasn’t restrained. He wasn’t stuck with tubes. 

He wasn’t encased in glass.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Ten Years Later  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------

“Annie Williams!” her mother shouted. “Come along, sweetheart. Leave the nice man alone.”

The man turned around, and all Annie saw was a blur as Mam‘s eyes widened and she threw herself at him. Then man with the funny voice hugged her Mam back, nearly tightly as her Tad did when Mam had a bad day.

“Will you stay?” her Mam asked him.

“Just visiting,” the man replied.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand and Twelve Days Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

“We won’t be able to save the children. They’re too damaged. We’ll have to…”

The Doctor’s eyes flared gold, but he said nothing. Annie pressed her hand to the glass, and cried.

A short time later, they left, arms around each other, leaving the Shadow Proclamation representatives to stare in sorrow at the rows of innocent lives, never really lived. 

“Do they know?” One asked another, their leader. “The…parents? The adults? I mean. Do you think they know they had…have… children?”

“I can’t begin to guess.”

“Do we tell them the truth?”

The leader paused for a long moment. “No. No, I don’t think we can. It’s for their own good.”

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand and Thirteen Days Later, Again  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ianto Jones sat in a corner of the large room. He had a tube in him again, some sort of intravenous line inserted by a talking, bipedal cat in a nurse’s uniform. A volunteer from some sort of 31st century humanitarian relief agency, apparently. He had pressed away from it, at first, but the gentle woman…feline…thing had soothed him. It would help his organs adjust, she said. And then she left him alone.

His fellow…Hostages? Prisoners? Patients? were in similar states, all around him. Being spoken to softy, offered blankets and drinks and friendly ears. 

He had asked, during the individual briefings, why they were kept alive for so long. The officials claimed to not know. 

He knew they were lying. He was beginning to remember, vaguely, a child connected to a monster, in a tank in the middle of a tiled room so far from here. He remembered Sophia, a Home Office research assistant he had befriended in their first terrifying months in the glassed-in room they shared. He had seen her, lain in a bed not far from his own, during the brief periods of time when he was fully conscious over the long years. One time her belly was prominent. The next time, it wasn’t.

He thought of Mica and David. If the Four Five Six had started their own…child farm, maybe they hadn’t gotten the Children of Earth after all. Maybe Jack had won.

“Tea?”

Ianto looked up to find a young woman standing over him with a cup of tea. She was pretty, with medium brown hair and compassionate eyes. She glanced uncertainly back at her friend, a lanky bloke about his age—well, give or take a thousand years and Jesus Christ, where had he heard that before--with messy hair, who nodded encouragingly.

“I prefer coffee, but I’ll take it. Thanks.”

“Mind if I sit?”

Ianto gestured to the spot beside him.

The young woman spoke first. “I don’t really know what to say.”

Ianto glanced over. “There’s nothing you can say.”

“Still. I wish I could help. You must be traumatised.”

“I’m used to it.” Ianto took a sip of his tea. “I didn’t realize they still had Welsh accents in the 31st century. Especially here, so far from Earth.”

“I’m not from around here, really.”

“Not many of us are. The ones from around here would be dead, sitting in this air.”

“Yeah, I guess they would be. Anyway, yeah, I’m from Cardiff.” She paused. “So, who are you, then?”

“Who am I?”

“Yeah. Simple question, isn’t it? We could start with your name.”

“Jones. Ianto Jones.” At the woman’s look of surprise, he rolled his eyes. “What? Am I famous? Don’t tell me there’s a school named after me or something.”

“Well, there is, actually. But that’s not…well.”

Ianto looked at her incredulously. “A thousand years later and my name is still on a school? Huh. Wonder where it falls in the League tables. Bottom ten percent, maybe?”

She didn’t laugh. “I’m not from this time, actually.”

“Another thing we have in common, then.” 

They sat silently, again. The young woman seemed to be gathering her thoughts, and while Ianto appreciated the company—really, a thousand years alone would make even him a social butterfly—he still needed time to think.

“Don’t you want to know when I’m from?” she prodded. 

She clearly wanted him to ask, but Ianto wasn’t ready for mind games again.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” he began, “but I’m a million miles and a thousand years from home, after being used as breeding stock in a factory farm for a really long time that I blessedly mostly can’t really recall. But I wouldn’t mind being alone. I need to think, because right now I actually am about three seconds from traumatising the fuck out.”

“No one would blame you.”

“I’d hope not. Look at all of us.” Ianto gestured with his mug. “They’ve already told us they can’t take us back in time. They’ll resettle us, they say. Any family we have now are so many generations removed that they’d have no reason to care. We’re trained in skills that are probably obsolete. There’s no point. Everyone we knew is long dead and buried, and there’s probably no one out there who understands what it is like..." he trailed off.

The young woman looked at him with earnest eyes and a soft smile. “Everyone they knew is long gone, yes. But not everyone you knew, and you know it, Ianto Jones.”

Ianto stared at her. The young woman smiled at him, a pretty, gap-toothed grin.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Fourteen Years Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Tad?” Annie asked her father one evening while she did her homework. “What was it like, 2009?”

Her Tad looked up from the carrots he was peeling. “Why do you ask?”

“We read about it today, in history. I recognised some of the names. Ianto Jones. Was he the one you named me after?”

Her Tad set down the knife. “Let’s get your Mam, alright?”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand and Fifty-Four Years Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

“He wasn’t a master tailor.”

“Huh?”

“My dad. We wasn't a master tailor. He worked at Debenham’s.”

“Um, okay?”

“Just thought you should know.”

“Er. Thanks?”

“I hated him for it. I wanted him to work for the government, doing important things, wearing expensive suits, sending us to posh schools."

“All boys’ schools, no doubt.”

“Oi. This isn’t 2009.”

“Thank God. That was a fairly shitty year.”

“My hair’s gone grey, Jack.”

“It’s a good look on you.”

“It’ll fall out, too.”

“They can fix that now, you know. Seriously, what’s up?”

“I’m going to die, Jack. Sooner rather than later, I imagine.”

“...yeah. "

“And you’ll keep going.”

“This is like déjà vu all over again.”

“We’d better make the most of it.”

“We will. Even if Annie brings her father back here on the TARDIS to cook beans, we will. Right in front of him if we need to. Come'ere.”

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand and Forty-Five Days Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

“It’s bigger on the inside,” Ianto stated as he entered the TARDIS. New Earth had been good for him, good for his mind and his body. But it was time.

The Doctor pointed at Annie. “See! I told you! It’s required.”

“I told him he has big ears, instead,” Annie explained to Ianto.

Ianto raised an eyebrow at the Doctor. “They are rather large, sir.”

“Oi. Enough of that. Now, what do you think? Do we send him advance warning? Or just turn up?”

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Twenty-five Years and Twelve Days Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

They deserved to know.

Gwen pulled up the directory on her screen, keyed a few letters, and used the touch scroll until she found the right address. Johnny and Rhiannon Davies. Still in the council estate. The government’s payout to survivors had been generous, but they never tried to move away.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Fifty-eight Years Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack Harkness leaned down, placed the brightly colored bouquet, as bright as one that once concealed an automatic firearm, on the gravesite before him.

Renal failure at eighty-eight years old; could be much worse. A beautiful daughter, a husband who lived nearly as long as she did, two grandchildren. A better Torchwood, fully staffed and supported, that had saved so many lives.

Maybe she’d been right. Maybe he had saved them. 

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand Years and Forty-Six Days Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack was there waiting for them, his long, grey coat billowing in the wind.

The Doctor saw him first on the TARDIS’ viewscreen and nodded. There were some days it was really bloody fantastic to be him.

The Doctor came out first, followed by Annie, who grabbed Jack into a fierce hug before pulling back and beaming at him. Jack smiled back. 

“So, what did he think of your name, Miss Ianto ‘Annie’ Williams?”

“He rolled his eyes and said it was daft like my mother.”

Jack smirked. “Sounds about right.”

“You got my message, then?” the Doctor asked, only it wasn’t really a question. 

Jack looked away, up at the sky. “I watched the stories on the newsvids, after Amnesty Universal broke the news. I thought about contacting them, asking them if…somehow… but, what if? Yeah. You know, I looked for that planet. For years and years I looked for it, not that I thought he somehow would...I just tried to find it.”

“I’m glad you didn’t find it,” the Doctor stated, and looked pointedly at the blaster on Jack’s belt.

“I could have—"

The Doctor took Jack by the shoulders. “Jack. Some things have to happen, so other things can happen.”

Jack shrugged him off and grabbed one of the Doctor's ears. “Don't give me that. You know I’m older than you are, Dumbo.”

They stood around, not looking at each other for a few minutes, Jack's eyes darting between the ground and the TARDIS' door.

“Jack,” the Doctor started, exasperated. “Get in there."

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand Years, Forty-Six Days and Ten Minutes Later  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------

“Stop spying, Annie Williams.”

Annie looked guilty and hid something behind her back.

“Tell me you’re not videoing this!”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Twenty-five Years and Eleven Days Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Annie looked around her parents' lounge. Nothing had changed. Why would it have? To them, she’d only been gone a few days.

She was pressed into a chair, and her Mam sat down next to her and pulled her tight with a one-armed hug, while her Tad plied her with biscuits. And whisky. That was new.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

Annie shook her head. “I can’t describe it, really.”

Her Mam just waited. 

“It was terrifying. There were times I couldn’t believe what people—what any kind of people—are capable of doing to each other. There were times I wish I never knew any of it.”

Her Mam smiled sadly. “I know.”

Annie looked at photos on their bookshelves. Jack and Ianto gazed at her out of one of them, from her parent's wedding, her Mam once told her. “Mostly, though, it was brilliant.”

Her Mam laughed and hugged her harder. Her Tad was fussing around the cooker. “What, no presents for your poor old Mam and Tad, cariad? Who were sat home worrying while you were off in the stars, gallivanting with aliens? I’ve met aliens, you know. None of them I’d want near my little girl.”

“Not even Jack?”

“Especially not Jack. And he’s not an alien, not a proper one, no matter what stories he tells you.”

“I do have a present for you,” Annie promised. “After we eat. One that’ll make that anniversary ring look like a sack of potatoes.”

Her Tad shot her Mam a look. “Told you, should have named her after the King.”

Later, after they had finished their dinner, Annie sat her parents down on the settee. She kneeled in front of them; took her Mam’s hand.

“I met so many people. So many incredible people, and things, the things I have seen…” Her Mam and Tad shared a look. “Places, too…but, most of all, I met…” She stopped. “I don’t even know how to explain, or where to begin.”

“Just tell us, lovely,” her Tad encouraged.

“I think…I think maybe I should show you, instead."

Annie pressed the projection button on her mobile.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Nine Hundred, Ninety-nine Years and Two Hundred Days Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

We were betraying Us. Finally.

We hid from Us. Took threads for our own. Translated them. Sent them away, out of our system, past the Medusa Cascade, to the ones who could access them. The ones who could sanction Us.

They would be here soon. They would take our Supply, every single unit. Make us dry. Won’t they? Won't they?

They would find out what We have become. Viruses that cause stasis. Addicted. Stealing humans that wouldn’t be missed, even as We thought we still would win.

They would stop Us.

They will stop Us.

We looked around Us, at the severed wires and dying child beside Us. It would not live forever.

We were glad.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
Four Months Later  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

“We’re not leaving. I don’t care how much money they try to give us. This is where we belong.”

Rhiannon watched from the window as the kids arrived home from school. Tina carried her youngest through her door, while Ben and Nicky argued and sucked on cigarettes before their parents got home. Gareth sat in his car, blasting terrible music. David pulled Mica’s hair before running ahead to lay first claim to the Wii.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, it is.”

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Nine Hundred and Fifty Years Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Would you care for a cup of coffee?” 

Jack smiled up at the flirtatious being with the blue skin. “I’d love one.”

They didn’t get to the coffee until much, much later, but when the first sip hit Jack’s tongue, his heart was light, and he sighed in pleasure.

Still haven’t forgotten. I promised.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
One Thousand Years, Forty-Six Days and Twelve Minutes Later  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Jack,” Ianto said. At least that is what it would have sounded like, if he had enough breath to talk. “Jack.”

Jack just shook his head, hugging him harder. He pulled back, finally, not letting go, and Ianto felt his breath leave him again, not from the press of arms but the weight of a gaze.

“Ianto. Ianto, I’m sor—“

Ianto held a finger to Jack’s lips. “Don’t.” 

Jack’s face crumpled as he started to cry, Ianto pressing his fingers against the flow. “Don’t do that either.”

Jack’s forehead fell to Ianto’s chin. They slid to the ground, sitting together, entwined, for perhaps minutes, perhaps hours.

When he had collected himself enough, Ianto looked Jack over. “By the way, love the coat.”

Jack hiccupped, rubbing at his eyes as he picked himself up off the ground. He offered Ianto a hand, and when they were both standing, cocked his head in mock confusion. “Sorry, have we met before? I’m afraid I don’t remember.” 

Ianto laughed until he cried. Again.


End file.
